


With catatonic minds and lips

by moshelle



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Oblivious Tony Stark, POV Peter Parker, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Pining Peter, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Civil War (Marvel), Romance, Slow Burn, Starker, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark and Peter Parker - Freeform, Tony Stark/Peter Parker - Freeform, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 14:39:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15753747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moshelle/pseuds/moshelle
Summary: As Peter gazed at Tony sleeping before him, he thinks about all the times he had come to wait for him to notice before he realised how undoubtedly fucked and far gone he was in falling in love with him.





	With catatonic minds and lips

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, so I'm finally getting back to writing since I had like a 2 year hiatus lmao but welcome to my first Starker fic! I drew inspiration from 'Words' by Birdy - it's a lovely song!  
> Enjoy! :)

 

> _If I can’t hold you down_
> 
> _Keep thinking that you might not come around_
> 
> _I have no words_
> 
> _\- Words, Birdy_

 

It was often in these moments that Peter got to fully take in his deep-rooted wrinkles – they way they crinkle around his eyes and mouth when he was asleep. All those restless nights spent in his workshop, sprawling his limbs and pouring over his work and calculations: hungrily, desperately and exactly the way Peter had yearned from him when he was in bed at night, blankly staring at his ceiling, his fingers lingering over the call button to spew how much he wanted him, didn’t care about what others thought, didn’t care if and how he would be used, didn’t even care that it wouldn’t last and that he only needed one taste and one second for him to crumble and fall to his knees for him.

Those wrinkles. Rolling skin over skin, would fold when his eyes lit up bright when he was brought a fresh hot cup of coffee, and his smile would tug slyly at the corners like a Cheshire cat.

Or they would crease when he frowned, much like when he gave a discontented sigh at a insolvable numerical enigma, combing his hand through his tousled soft brown locks that Peter had always imagined running his own fingers through, twisting them lightly between his thumb and forefinger to feel the millions of soft strands rolling in its natural texture; burying his nose to inhale the scent of coffee beans and sea breeze from countless hours flying over the city and putting out fires from disasters.

Peter wanted to touch him. To trail his index past his firm cheeks, until they brushed gently against the short, stunted hairs on his chin, trimmed neatly and so precisely that Peter wondered what it would be like to kiss him until they were tilting in all sorts of direction; to have wreaked havoc on his tidy life and to have felt the burn scratch across his own chin.

Peter gazed at the man sleeping on the table, crinkling paper everywhere on his desktop, his arc reactor muffling the soft blue glow onto the metal hard top. His shoulders were no longer tense, muscles heaving and ebbing quietly like a body of water.

Perhaps the most dangerous moment was not when was angry; when his brows were knitted so tight and his lips pulled so tense, you wanted to kiss every inch of his face to bring back his glow, his charm, his quips.

No – they weren’t the most dangerous. They weren’t the same knives that would puncture their way through to Peter’s heart and lungs, drawing blood as the tip dragged its painful slice upon layers of flesh only to plunge right back into the fucking middle.

Those knives were butter compared to this. Those blades were blunted and smoothed out, but these knives.

_These knives._

These knives were held only when Peter saw the drifting gaze of his eyes – dripping with all the honey-brown and sweetness in the world but so sad.

So fucking sad that Peter didn’t know whether he should kiss him or leave him because he couldn’t take the pain of seeing him like that. Didn’t know what to do when he became silent and tired and he could hear his heart split like a chestnut, empty and hollowed-dark in the middle, as he was reminded of all the ghosts that lurked behind the doors, in the hallway, in the living room with the once-alive TV, in the shadows of the Tower when everything was draped over in white. He wouldn’t look at Peter. And Peter wouldn’t know what to say. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t stop gazing right at him.

Peter wasn’t stupid – they both knew who involuntarily made themselves the centre of Peter’s tiny world. It had hurt so good when he gently placed his coarse palm on Peter’s arm after a long day of training, giving it a reassuring squeeze before saying, _go home, Kid. Don’t want to keep you for too long._

Peter had wanted to hold his hand tight; had wanted to slap his palms on the side of his face, holding it still and screamed until he was silenced by a rough clash of his lips.

_I don’t care. I want you to keep me for too long. I want to keep you for too long. Why won’t you let me? Just let me._

But these knives were cruel. And even crueller when it was him that held the handle, deciding when and where to puncture their holes into Peter’s body, having all the control to suspend him into a sense of catatonia that left his mind scrambling in all sorts of haywire directions and his lips paralyzed of words.

 

> _If I can’t change your mind_
> 
> _Keep thinking, is this our last goodbye?_
> 
> _You say it first_
> 
> _\- Words, Birdy_

 

It’s the same ending each time.

Peter’s persistence, his friction to push him away every time Peter’s toes seemed to get too close to the borders, Peter’s probing stubbornness and finally his resolve to let him stay. If Peter wasn’t careful – a slight twitch, a small moment of fumbled movement would trigger the cycle again; close him up like flower petals shielding themselves from the cold night.

Peter sighed, closing his eyes as he revelled in the warmth of the workshop, drawing his knees closer to his chest, listening to the soft breathing of him sleeping there.

There was nothing he could do. No tricks. No stunts. No life hack to how he could engineer his thoughts – chucking away some cogs, tinkering with others, installing ones that gave his emotions a kick to realise how long Peter had been there.

Maybe it wasn’t him that needed the tinkering.

Maybe it was Peter.

Maybe if Peter had slid closer to him, curled his fingertips around his shoulders, bringing him close to his chest and pressed his lips against him to feel the natural mould of two separate flesh conjoining into one, like the familiar childish nostalgia of slipping one’s palm into their old baseball mitten, he would rouse from the deadly quiet night and see him still sitting there.

 

_He rasped, voice hoarse from hours of sleep and perhaps even a hint of urgency._

_Kid, what are you -  it’s late._

 

Maybe it would be too much for him to handle another burden - that this would be the last thing that had finally tipped the water-brimming cup, ruining all the scattered memories of them. That the cycle would start all over again, and he would shiver awake, eyes lifting slowly open to shine into Peter’s with sadness, grief, weariness and all the things that made Tony - Tony. He would draw open his lips - dry, dehydrated and shrivelled from lack of water.

And then they would be even.

They would be on par with each other. Gaze to gaze. Face to face. Lover to lover. Mentor to mentee. Father to son. Whatever the fuck anyone wanted to call them – but Peter knew one thing and one thing only.

That if they were submerged in that one moment where both could say whatever the heck they wanted; that one would speak and the other would listen; that the cogs would start to turn and hum to warn Peter the cycle would soon be starting again; that only one of them could hold the knife to bear down upon the other’s head and heart and lungs, fingers, feet and toes; that one of them would say _stop_ and the other would say nothing at all.

 

_Peter._

_He would see the slight shake of his head and the worry buried deep below his gold-brown orbs._

 

Then Peter promised that Tony would be the speaker and he the listener.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Anndddd closing the night with a starker fic, piles of uncompleted uni work and a procrastinator working her way to watch some more marvel films lmao


End file.
